1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an image processing apparatus (image forming apparatus) cooperating with an entrance/exit management system, a method of controlling the image processing apparatus, and more particularly to an image processing apparatus characterized by a technique for preventing printouts from being left after a print job from an external apparatus is executed and a method of controlling the image processing apparatus.
2. Description of the Related Art
A print job can be transmitted from an external apparatus, such as a PC, to an image processing apparatus, thereby causing the image processing apparatus to execute the print job and discharge a printout. However, unless a user having transmitted the print job to the image processing apparatus comes over to take the printout, the printout is left as it is, and hence there is a security problem that the printout can be viewed or taken away by another user.
Particularly when a large number of print jobs are left undone in the image processing apparatus, or when the operation of the device is stopped due to a sheet jam or during exchange of a consumable, compelling the user to wait for a long time, the user often forgets that he has sent a print job for printing.
As a conventional technique for preventing a user from forgetting to take out a printout, there has been proposed a technique in which if a remaining sheet-detecting unit detects a printout left after printing, a notification destination is notified of the fact e.g. by mail or telephone (see e.g. Japanese Patent Laid-Open Publication No. 2002-132100).
In the conventional technique for notifying that the user forgets to take out printouts, by mail or telephone, if a means, such as mail or telephone, by which the user receives the notification, is not activated, it is impossible to know that the printout is left. Further, the user cannot receive the notification until the print job is executed, so that when it takes much time before the print job is executed, the user is likely to forget that he has send the print job for printing.
As a solution to the problem, it is possible to envisage a method of automatically canceling a job requiring long waiting time and a method of transferring the job to another image processing apparatus, but these methods suffer from the problem that the user cannot always cause an image processing apparatus desired by the user to deliver a printout.